Carroll Fife

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Carroll Fife is a housing activist, a co-founder of Moms 4 Housing, and the city councilmember of Oakland, California for its 3rd district since January 2021.

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Early life and education

As a teenager, Fife, the middle of three children, worked in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. Her grandfather was one of the first Black city councilmen. [1]

After becoming a parent, she settled in Pasadena, California and then moved to Oakland in 1999 to create a small school. [1]

Fife has a degree in psychology and worked as a paralegal before working for the community-based Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). [1] In 2017 she was named the interim director of the Oakland/San Francisco chapter of ACCE. [2]

Housing activism

Fife received national attention in 2019 as the co-founder of Moms 4 Housing, a group of Black mothers who occupied a vacant corporate-owned West Oakland home, advocating that housing should be recognized as a basic human right. [3]

In a 2022 interview, Fife told SFGate that homelessness in Oakland was directly due to "neo-liberal policies" and "race-blind policies" created by the "overproduction of market rate units and rapid speculation". In June 2022, the council unanimously approved Fife's plan to create a rent registry to make rental property ownership and historical rental price information available to the public. [4]

City councilperson

Fife won her 2020 election to the Oakland City Council, defeating the two-term incumbent by nearly 20 percentage points. [5] In 2021, she voted to redirect $17.4 million of a $27 million budget increase from the Oakland Police Department to the Department of Violence Prevention. [6]

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in January 2023, Fife, a Black woman, publicized the violent and racist threats she had received against her and other public officials. Fife told KQED news, "The only reason I posted it is because it’s gotten worse lately. Because this has been happening to me, honestly, pretty consistently since Moms 4 Housing". [7]

In November 2023, the Associated Press reported that Fife's resolution to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war passed the Oakland City Council 8–0, unanimously. [8]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 King, Jamilah. "A radical housing activist wants to upend Oakland government from the inside". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  2. ↑ "Carroll Fife Named Director of Oakland/San Francisco ACCE | Post News Group". www.postnewsgroup.com. 2017-09-06. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  3. ↑ Higgins, Eoin (2020-11-09). "Carroll Fife's Fight For Unhoused Mothers Sparked A Movement Across The Country. Now She's On The Oakland City Council Ready To Transform The City". theappeal.org. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  4. ↑ Shultz, Alex (November 9, 2020). "Oakland Councilmember Carroll Fife on her ambitious plan to salvage the Bay Area's 'crazy-making' housing crisis". SFGate. Retrieved August 15, 2024.
  5. ↑ Jabali, Maliaka (2024-01-19). "Rent Is Too High: Oakland Is Struggling With A Housing Crisis. This Mom Led A Movement To Fix It". Essence. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  6. ↑ "Oakland's new budget doesn't 'defund' the police, but it boosts funding for alternatives". www.oaklandside.org. 2021-06-25. Retrieved 2024-10-30.
  7. ↑ Lagos, Marisa (2023-01-18). "'It's Gotten Worse': Oakland City Council Member Carroll Fife Faces Racist, Violent Threats | KQED". www.kqed.org. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  8. ↑ Rodriguez, Olga (2023-11-28). "California city calls for permanent cease-fire in Israel-Hamas war, urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza". AP News. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
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